1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing control method for causing a printing apparatus which can perform printing on a sheet of paper with a size other than a predetermined size to print data generated by an application capable of allocating pages to a sheet of paper with the predetermined size.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, techniques for matching a printing area in an application with a size and aspect ratio of a sheet of paper to be printed are known. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-006600 discusses a technique for automatically selecting a paper size into which the printing area can fit, from standard paper sizes stored in a system, based on the printing area set by a user.
However, in case of dealing with a printing area which does not include a page concept in which the aspect ratio can be arbitrarily set, such as a spreadsheet document, if printing is performed by setting the standard paper size, a page break can occur at a location not intended by the user, and unintended blank spaces can be added.
FIG. 11 illustrates an example of a spreadsheet document. A case of printing such a spreadsheet document will now be considered. FIG. 12A illustrates a printed matter when an A4 size is set as the paper size for the spreadsheet document illustrated in FIG. 11. Similarly, FIG. 12B illustrates a printed matter when an A3 size is set as the paper size for the spreadsheet document illustrated in FIG. 11.
In the example illustrated in FIG. 12A, although printing is performed to the very edge of a page width, a page break occurs midway. Further, in the example illustrated in FIG. 12B, although all of the spreadsheet data is printed within the page, there is a blank space on the right side.
The reason why such printing occurs is that the aspect ratio of the spreadsheet data is different from that of the standard sizes. Thus, the aspect ratio of print data generated by an application lacking a page concept is often different from that of the standard size, like in FIG. 11.
One way to solve such a problem is to print a spreadsheet document like that illustrated in FIG. 11 on a non-standard arbitrary cut paper or roll paper which matches the aspect ratio of the document. For example, when roll paper is used, since the aspect ratio of the page can be freely set, printing can be performed to the very edge of the page width while fitting within the page.
However, when printing on a non-standard paper size by an application which is only compatible with standard size paper, as discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-217516, the user has to set the paper size for the application. More specifically, to print data generated by an application which does not include a page concept to the very edge of the page width while fitting within the page of a sheet of paper, the user needs to perform the following series of actions. Consequently, there is a problem that operation becomes complex.
(1) Calculate the paper size based on the aspect ratio of the printing area for each printing target.
(2) Set the calculated paper size for the application.
(3) Set a printer driver in a printer which will perform printing so that an original document of the calculated paper size is printed to the very edge of the paper width.